Building, Dwelling, Thinking

Heidegger is asking the question of how we exist within the world. We, as man, dwell. He refers back to the old German word Buan to encompass the dwelling that is now hidden by our ideas of building. This old word contains building both as cultivating and protecting and as erecting edifices. It is important to see our relationship to the world in a new way. Heidegger's idea of the fourfold allows this; earth, sky, mortals, divinities. They must all co-exist as the original oneness. Humans must neither master the Earth, nor passively stand in wait. They save, care and nurture; they gather. "But if dwelling preserves the fourfold, where does it keep the fourfold's essence?... Dwelling, as preserving, keeps the fourfold in that with which mortals stay: in things." Things create space, allow locales, in their gathering of the fourfold. The boundary does not limit or stop, but allows a thing's unfolding. We exist in space, we dwell, we stay within the fourfold. Heidegger traces nachbar, neighbour, back to the old German word Nachgebauer, the near-dweller. It points to being on the earth and being mortal, but also has connotations of caring, nurturing, protecting, cherishing, saving. He relates the words peace, Friede, the free, preserved from harm and danger, safeguarded and takes the real meaning of freedom to be a sparing, a positive notion of allowing something to develop in its own essence, to allow things peace and to be free in the fourfold. Building, so considered (in the original sense), is admitting and installing the fourfold, allowing a space, a locale, to house our human lives. But this notion is corrupted when, instead of attending to the fourfold and our place within it, we construct without respecting the meaning of human dwelling and its inescapable relation to thinking and building. The modern world imposes constructed edifices on the landscape, rather than encompassing them in a respectful relationship.

Another Thought:

We were talking about types of houses, from the Black Forest farmhouse, which harbours the family from birth to death, respects both mortality and divinity, and both the Earth and sky. This is contrasted with pre-fab houses, built for no-one in particular, set upon the ground at no particular location, that need not heed the sky if it can pump water from elsewhere, that need not heed the Earth, for it is no longer the supplier of sustenance or nutrients, which come now from supermarkets and chemists. This kind of construction, social and physical, does not care for mortality, which it avoids, nor divinity, in which it does not believe. We no longer dwell, as a sparing, rather we abuse those which cannot protect themselves, both the Earth and ourselves. In this strange non-relationship, we have lost sight of ourselves as co-existent, with others, with the earth, sky and divinities. The divinities can be associated with Being, Dasein, and wonder, rather than meaning transcendent Gods. We need simply to renew our understanding of what it means to exist, to dwell, to be and we will find our place as nurturers once again. I think this means that we must live in a "constant relationship" - by this I mean, live with integrity, fully, continuously and conscientiously. There is a schism, it seems, between our ideals and our reality and it seems a constant refrain that, one would like to live better, it is just too expensive, inconvenient, time-consuming etc. We must reconsider what it is that makes us human; whether it is more akin to consumption or nurturing. It is relatively pointless to have lofty ideals and better goals (which is why the Green/eco movement is allowing us to continue guilt-free consumption) without an integrity in action.